Dwarf:But what if the undead come crawling over the rubble behind us, looking for brains?Spell-casting priest (me):No worries, we don't have any of those.

Last week, my roleplaying group tried to prepare a cave for a fight. It took several hours. Our poor GM occasionally asked, in an increasingly despairing voice, "so what exactly is your plan…?", to which our decisive and eloquent answer was, inevitably, "uhm".

Summary: For such a rigid and inflexible man, Chief Zhao could be surprisingly capricious. Why would he send a distinguished cat like Da Qing to deal with his drunk, wayward and entirely objectionable offspring? Humans, seriously.

OR:

Da Qing and Zhao Yunlan's first meeting. (For a certain value of "first".)

Summary: Combatants from another world unexpectedly enter Dragon City, the Black-Cloaked Envoy acquires an interesting reputation, and nobody has a terribly good time.

Hidden Charms

On Wednesday, a portal to another universe opened south of the river, over the old town hall. It swirled shut again almost immediately, but in the brief moment of its existence, a kid wearing a baseball cap, a monk, a schoolgirl and a guy in a trench coat managed to fall through. They then put half of Dragon City under a force field, jumped around on top of various buildings, and threw bolts of electricity, swords, doves, hawks and various other missiles at each other. Dozens of people had recorded it on their phones, or Yunlan would probably have considered at least the birds down to creative license.

It's come to my attention that I have neglected to link to my favorite Guardian community here!

sid_guardian is a noticeboard for linking 镇魂 | Guardian fanworks of all kinds (such as fic, art, meta) as well as other Guardian-related posts, and for making Guardian recs. Please subscribe, spread the word, and drop by and say hi on our intro post. (Introductions are optional! Lurkers also welcome!)

The m/m novel the Guardian series is based on can be read online – most of it has already been translated into English. It has a large fanbase, and many Guardian fans enjoy both canons. However, before reading the novel as a fan of the series, it may be good to know one thing:

The Guardian novel is very different from the Guardian series.

If you decide to check out the novel, I would strongly recommend reading it as its own thing, entirely independent of the series. Because otherwise, things get weird. ( Text and pics behind the cut! )

The flu is going around, and Zhao Yunlan makes a surprising discovery.

It was great fun, all things told, and I might well participate again this year. Especially if I can avoid the sudden RL end-of-the-year madness. (As you may be able to tell by the lateness of this post, I am still in the process of catching up to life again. Ack.)

Without apropos: The world needs an icon reading „Anachronistic Lollipop“. Alternately, this should be the name of a band.

Before I start posting fanfic and talking about Guardian, I’d like to give you all some idea of what this fandom is about. So!

Guardian is a Chinese fantasy/scifi series about a cop who heads a specialized team for supernatural* crime. Zhao Yunlan – the cop – is supported in his endeavors by Shen Wei, a mild-mannered professor who acts as a consultant, and who frequently jumps in to save Zhao Yunlan and/or the day. He does this surprisingly effectively, because Shen Wei is secretly an immensely powerful being known as the Black-Cloaked Envoy, one of the rulers of the supernatural* realm. Shen Wei has also been in love with Zhao Yunlan for thousands of years, for complex and spoilery reasons that don’t need exploring at this juncture.

* I use „supernatural“ as shorthand for „technically scientifically explainable scifi-genre-like goings-ons that are for all intents and purposes supernatural“. More on this in a bit!

The entire series is available on YouTube, with subtitles, and is a delight. I encourage you to check it out if you have any interest in gay romance, or fantasy/scifi with an unusual slant.

I never got the hang of Tumblr, and have sadly lost touch with much of fandom because of it - much to my regret. This is my chance! Whether fandom returns to DW or migrates to yet another platform, my plan is to jump back in with both feet. I would love to find new friends and reconnect with old ones.

These last few years, I've been in a kind of fannish hibernation. I never stopped reading fanfic, but haven't been writing myself. Until very recently, I didn't feel intensely fannish about any fandom, and felt rather out of step with fandom in general. And I missed it, guys! The fannish exchange, the discussion, the shared squee, the canon analysis, the writing - the excitement and joy of sharing fannish love and energy with others.

And then, very recently, Guardian happened. And OMG, I have a new fandom! I will definitely post more about this lovely fantasy/scifi series where the millennia-spanning m/m romance is canon and everything is awesome. (More about The Awesome later. this is not that post. *g*) Thanks again, extempore and you other enablers - you know who you are. :-)

So I am now writing fanfic again, and fans are returning to a platform where I might be able to successfully interact with them, and - yay, I missed this so much!

Anyway! Expect Guardian posts here soon - and a brief intro post about my other fandoms, because I hope to make new friends. :-)

thank you so much for writing a story for me! I’ll try to give you an impression of both what I like to read in general, and what I like about the fandoms I’ve requested, but please don’t worry if you have a different story idea or are drawn to different aspects of canon. Any story you write in one of these fandoms will make me happy.

The TER/MA archive is moving to the AO3! My first stories from when I was a bright-eyed newbie slasher are on there. To think that I now officially qualify as a Fannish Dinosaur... time does fly.

I read the other day that Callum Keith Rennie was offered the part of Alex Krycek, but turned it down. Imagine if he had taken the part... I can't help but think that version of Krycek would have had an entirely different dynamic with Mulder from the start, ultimately leading to an entirely different relationship - though I have no doubt that it would have been every bit as slashy. ;-)

In other news, yes, I still exist! I have merely gone into fannish hibernation, if hibernation means a state where I still read DW and LJ as well as all the slash fanfic I can get my hands on. Haven't been grabbed by any new fandoms, though. What about you guys?

So, I am finally watching The Flash - only about 3 years after everyone else. :-) It took me this long because I watched the first ep when the series started, and, well. Did not think it was promising. But since everyone else seems to be enjoying the series so much, I figured it must get better, and have given it another try! I started with ep2 this time, and things have been going much better.

I'm only up to S01E05, so the series hasn't really found its feet yet, but its doing well enough. Standard superhero series plots, but entertaining, with likeable characters. I like Barry and many of the secondary characters, and am happy to see what the series holds in store. It hasn't really grabbed me, but it isn't rubbing me the wrong way either, and I can see it getting there in time.

But there is one thing that I really, really dislike and that fills me with apprehension: The Iris Situation. Warning for extreme grumpiness that may harsh squee under the cut...